


Behind Closed Doors

by boasamishipper



Category: Top Gun (1986), Top Gun: Maverick (2020)
Genre: 2020s, Arguing, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Inspired by Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV), M/M, Married Couple, Married Life, Mathematics, Post-Canon, Top Gun: Maverick Speculation, Voicemail, i wrote this in two hours, if this isn't precisely the kind of content we get in TG2 we riot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 03:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21439417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boasamishipper/pseuds/boasamishipper
Summary: In which there are three closed doors, Fritz has many heart attacks, and Bradley's right all along. / Or, Iceman, Maverick, and the Monty Hall Saga.
Relationships: Bradley Bradshaw & Fritz (Top Gun: Maverick), Bradley Bradshaw/Phoenix (Top Gun: Maverick), Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell
Comments: 13
Kudos: 40





	Behind Closed Doors

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by the Brooklyn Nine Nine episode "Skyfire Cycle." Fritz is the name of the character that will be played by Manny Jacinto, and Phoenix is the name of the character played by Monica Barbaro. All the other pilots mentioned are of my own invention.

“Mendoza, Bradshaw. Hang back for a second.”

Fritz does his best not to squeak. Four weeks into his time at TOPGUN — which is already proving to be the hardest and greatest time of his life — and this is the first time that Captain Mitchell has addressed him directly, and he’s not sure what to do. Oh god, and Captain Kazansky’s with him. Is he supposed to salute? Curtsy? Bradley just moves to the front of the classroom and stands at attention, so Fritz does the same thing. “Yes sir?”

Captain Mitchell sits on the desk, his arms crossed over his chest, and Captain Kazansky leans against the wall next to the chalkboard, chewing gum. “Lieutenants,” Captain Mitchell says. God, he’s so cool. Fritz has resigned himself to waiting until the end of the session to ask him and Captain Kazansky for their autographs. After he and Bradley beat Phoenix and win the Top Gun trophy, that is. “I want you to settle an argument me and Captain Kazansky are having.”

“It’s okay, sir,” Bradley says while Fritz tries to wonder what the captains could possibly be arguing about. Maybe they’re about to be entrusted with top secret military information. _ Stay calm, Mendoza. _“We really don’t want to get involved in your personal life—”

“It’s not personal,” Captain Kazansky cuts in. He looks a combination of exhausted and exasperated, but no less charismatic and commanding. Fritz might be a little in love. “It’s a math problem.”

_ Oh, Mama. _

“Captain Kazansky and I had dinner together last night for the first time in two weeks,” Captain Mitchell says, his words clipped short. “Thanks to the demands of this session and our meetings with the brass. And _ Ice,” _ he punctuates this statement with a glare in his husband’s direction, “thought it would be fun to ruin our date with a stupid math problem, and now he’s mad that I’m right and he’s wrong.”

“Enough foreplay,” Fritz says eagerly, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s get to the numbers.”

Captain Mitchell and Captain Kazansky’s eyebrows go up at the same time. _ Alright, maybe that was a little too eager. _ But Captain Mitchell shakes it off and says, “It’s the Monty Hall problem.” He puts on his best teacher voice, gesturing as he speaks. “Imagine you’re on a game show. There are three doors, and behind one of the doors is a car—”

“You’re telling it wrong,” Captain Kazansky interrupts, and Captain Mitchell rolls his eyes. To Bradley and Fritz, he says, “There are three doors, and behind one of the doors is a car. You pick a door. The host, who knows where the car is, opens a different door, showing you there’s nothing behind it. Now the host asks if you’d like to choose the other unopened door. Should you do it?”

“No,” Captain Mitchell snaps, just as Captain Kazansky snaps, “Yes!”

“It’s simple math, Maverick—”

“I know it is, which is why I know I’m right! It doesn’t make any sense to switch. The prize is behind one of two doors. It’s a fifty-fifty chance either way.”

“It’s two-thirds if you switch,” Captain Kazansky says, with the air of a mother explaining to a toddler for the hundredth time that two and two made four. “And one-third if you don’t. The probability locks in when you make the choice. We’ve been over this eight times.”

“Seven times,” Captain Mitchell says. “Now you can’t even do simple addition.”

Bradley mutters something under his breath that’s either _ oh my fucking god _ or _ great balls of fire. _ Fritz worries at his bottom lip with his teeth, hesitates. “…Captain Kazansky’s right.”

Captain Mitchell stares at him. “…You’re demoted.”

_ “WHAT?” _

* * *

Fritz doesn’t get demoted, but he spends the rest of the day fighting off the after-effects of a mild heart attack. He does get a little entertainment from watching Phoenix and Bradley engage in their usual show of rivalry mixed in with an aircraft carrier’s worth of sexual tension at the O Club that evening, and by the next day, Fritz figures that everything will be fine between the captains. Hell, they’d survived keeping their relationship under wraps for almost twenty years of DADT, and the last eight years (nine in October) of marriage. They’ll be fine.

He and Bradley are on their way to the captains’ shared office for their weekly performance evaluation when Fritz hears arguing, and he stops in his tracks, grabbing Bradley’s wrist. “Hey,” he says, a little nervous. “Should we wait? Or knock, or something?”

Bradley waves him off. “It’s fine,” he says easily. Fritz still hasn’t forgiven Bradley for not disclosing that Fritz’s heroes were actually Bradley’s uncles until the first week of the session, but it’s made for some interesting insight into the captains’ lives. They have cats! Five of them, all named after aircraft. Both ingenius and adorable. “They argue all the time. It’s basically their version of foreplay.”

Fritz grins. “So like you and Phoenix?” he teases, enjoying how red Bradley’s face gets. They’ve been best friends since flight school, and Fritz has let Bradley Bradshaw get away with approximately none of his shit since Fritz officially became his WSO. “C’mon, Rooster, lead the way.”

Bradley flips him off, and leads the rest of the way to Captains Mitchell and Kazansky’s office. The door’s shut, but Fritz can still hear them arguing loud and clear.

“—probability doesn’t kick in, Kazansky,” Captain Mitchell is saying. “Want me to find a YouTube video on college-level statistics for you?”

“I think you need a refresher on high school statistics first, Mitchell.”

“And I think you need a refresher on _ eighth grade _statistics—”

“Says the man who probably slept through _ seventh _grade statistics—”

Fritz turns to Bradley, his eyebrows arched. “This is really weird foreplay, man.”

“Hey, who am I to tell my uncles how to live their lives?”

Just then, the office door is yanked open, and out comes Captain Mitchell. Fritz straightens so fast that he almost throws out his back, but Captain Mitchell doesn’t even grace him or Bradley with a nod before he walks off briskly down the hall, probably to go to his meeting with the brass. Since the captains both run the program, they’ve been taking their administrative duties in turns. 

Captain Kazansky is at his desk when they come in, twirling a pen through his fingers, and Fritz does his best to smile politely as he and Bradley stand at attention. “Good morning, sir.”

“At ease,” Captain Kazansky says impatiently, and they both relax. “No, it’s not. I spent half the night going over that stupid problem. Now I finally understand Maverick’s side.”

“Cool,” Bradley says. “So it’s all better and I never have to hear about math again?”

“No,” Captain Kazansky says. “Just the opposite. Now I know better than ever how incorrect he is, and he refuses to accept it.” His pen returns to its lazy, elegant writhe across his knuckles; forward, back, across, forward, back, across, and then he sets it down. “Now, let me find your file…”

Their performance evaluation is relatively short — they’re in the lead, beating Phoenix and her WSO by two points — and Captain Kazansky dismisses them after ten minutes, mumbling something under his breath about leaving his husband a snide voicemail about ‘kindergarten statistics.’

Once they’re far away from Captain Kazansky’s office, Fritz pulls Bradley into a relatively empty corridor so they can talk. “Alright,” he says, as authoritative as he can manage. “We have _ got _ to explain this thing to Captain Kazansky and Captain Mitchell to save their marriage.” He preens. “And you laughed at me when I told you about that weekend-long math conference I hosted in high school.”

“Yeah,” Bradley says. “Because it was called Funky Cats and Their Feisty Stats.”

“You’re just jealous you didn’t come up with that name.” Fritz crosses his arms over his chest. “And I’ll have you know it was very popular.”

“Yeah, man, I bet _ tens _of people showed up.” Fritz sticks his tongue out at Bradley, who rolls his eyes. “Anyway, trust me, this isn’t about the Monty Python problem or whatever it’s called. They haven’t had the chance to see each other because of work. They just need to bone.”

Fritz’s entire soul leaves his body. “What?!” he says incredulously. “Gross, Bradshaw, those are our dads!” Bradley’s eyebrows almost disappear into his hair, and Fritz scrambles to correct himself. “I mean — that’s not what I think, obviously. The Dadptains are just my COs.”

“Wow.”

“Never mind!” Fritz says, flustered. “I’m teaching our fathers the math!” And with that, he turns on his heel and sets off down the hall.

“Fritz.” He’s not looking, but he can hear that Bradley’s trying really hard not to laugh. “Fritz, man, our classroom’s the other way.”

“I’m taking the scenic route!”

“You’re heading to the ladies’ room.”

Fritz stops. Weighs his dignity against the right thing to do. And then he turns around and walks back to Bradley. “I knew that,” he says regally.

“Of course you did.”

“Bite me, Bradshaw.”

Bradley doesn’t stop laughing all the way back to their classroom.

* * *

They’ve got a hop right after lunch, which Phoenix and her WSO win by a nose — which pisses off Bradley, which means he and Phoenix will be snarking-slash-flirting with each other at the O Club all night long — and then they’ve all got a lecture with Captain Kazansky to finish out the day. Captain Kazansky’s a good teacher, but Fritz doesn’t pay much attention to today’s lecture on evasive maneuvers — he’s got his own plan to work on.

Once class lets out, the room slowly empties until it’s just him and Captain Kazansky, and Fritz kneels on the floor underneath his desk, cursing to himself. He hears Captain Kazansky sigh from where he’s erasing the chalkboard, and a moment later, the captain is right by him. “Something the matter, Lieutenant?”

“Lost my Navy ring, sir,” Fritz says.

“Did you see where it went?”

“Actually…” Fritz rises, holding three small ring boxes — which he’d borrowed from Whiplash and Spitfire for the purposes of this demonstration — in his hands and placing them on the desk nearest him. “It’s one of these three boxes.” He gestures at them like he’s Vanna White on _ Wheel of Fortune. _ “Why don’t you pick one?”

Captain Kazansky’s expression darkens, and the temperature in the room seems to drop twenty degrees. “Are you trying to _ Monty Hall _me, Lieutenant?” he snaps. Fritz opens his mouth to say something in his defense, but nothing comes out other than a very unmanly squeak. “This level of disrespect is unbelievable. I don’t need Monty Hall ruining my place of work when Monty Hall has already ruined my home life—”

“Come on, sir,” says Bradley, and both Captain Kazansky and Fritz look over to see Fritz’s knight in shining flight suit green standing in the doorway, looking almost bored. “The math thing isn’t the problem. Work’s been keeping you and Uncle Mav apart.” He shrugs. “You two just need to bone.”

Fritz’s life flashes before his eyes.

Captain Kazansky says, very calmly, “What.”

_ Don’t say it again, _ Fritz pleads — to Bradley, to God, to Satan, whoever. But Bradley — because he’s got nerves of steel, apparently, or he’s very good at pretending he does — says, “I said you two need to bone.”

Fritz makes another unmanly squeaking noise. The room goes deadly silent.

* * *

Here’s what Fritz remembers from the following forty (40) minute rant that’s directed at them.

    1. “How _dare you, _Lieutenant Bradshaw, I am your _sUPERIOR OFFICER—”_
    2. _“BONE?”_
    3. “What happens in my bedroom, Lieutenant, is _none _of your business.”
    4. “And just where do you get the right to say something so vulgar, so blatantly disrespectful in _mY CLASSROOM—”_
    5. _“BONE?!”_

By the time Captain Kazansky’s finished, half of their class and TOPGUN instructors are gathered in the doorway watching the commotion go down, including Harvard, Yale, Fanboy, Romeo, Whiplash, Spitfire, and Phoenix. Fritz is regretting the day he was born, and Bradley looks completely unperturbed. Finally, with a curt, “Don’t _ ever _ speak to me like that again,” Captain Kazansky strides out of the classroom, his face slightly flushed and his head held high; the crowd parts for him like he’s Moses.

“Bradley,” Fritz manages in a voice that’s barely a croak, “why did you do that?”

Bradley shrugs. “Uncle Ice was pent up,” he says. “Now he knows. Problem solved.” He crosses the room and puts an arm over Fritz’s shoulders. “Buy you a drink?”

“A stiff one.”

* * *

Ice gets home at ten, long after Mav’s meetings with the brass have ended. He’s exhausted from the day’s events, not to mention thoroughly embarrassed at how he’d blown up in front of Bradley and Fritz — and who knew how many others. (God, he hopes Bradley doesn’t tell Carole about his outburst; otherwise he’ll never hear the end of it.)

He parks the car in the garage and enters quietly, figuring that Mav’s either watching television with the MiGs (who love _ Jeopardy _ reruns and the local news) or is in bed already. But as fate would have it, Mav’s sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee; his uniform dishevelled, his hair tousled, his collar crooked.

“Hey,” Ice says softly.

Mav looks up, gives him a hesitant, tired smile. Almost nine years of marriage and almost thirty years together, and that smile still makes his stomach swoop. “Hi.”

“Can I join you?”

Mav shrugs one shoulder, and Ice takes it as a yes.

“How were your meetings?”

“Fine,” Mav says. “Funding, paperwork, the Pentagon, the usual. You?”

“Same deal.” Ice watches his husband raise his cup to his lips, finish his coffee. Aside from the disastrous dinner of a few days ago, this is the first time in almost three weeks that they’ve had the chance to be near each other, to talk with each other outside of work. “I figured you’d be in bed.”

“No point if you’re not there with me,” Mav says. Then, quietly, “I’m tired of going to bed alone.”

Ice’s throat tightens. “That your way of saying you miss me?”

The ghost of a smile crosses Mav’s face. A real smile. “Maybe.”

“Well,” Ice says. He turns in his seat, and Mav sets down his mug and turns in his chair so they’re facing each other. “Here’s mine.”

He leans forward and kisses his husband, the kind of kiss that they haven’t had time to share since this session began. And Mav had apparently craved it just as much as he had, because he leans forward too, melts into it, cups the side of Ice’s face with one hand — and then moves closer, letting Ice catch him around the waist and bring him to Ice’s lap. 

Ice breaks away slowly, stopping so their noses are an inch apart. “I missed you too,” he murmurs. And then, “Come to bed.”

Mav kisses him on the corner of his mouth. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Okay.”

* * *

They’re not young men anymore; then again, that’s to be expected after being together for so long. Ice turns sixty-one in December and Mav turned fifty-eight last month, and they’ve got the graying hair (in Mav’s case, though he dyes it) and the reading glasses (in Ice’s case) to prove it. They’re comfortable and middle-aged, and the sex — most of the time — tends to be comfortable and middle-aged too. Not that Ice enjoys himself any less than he had when they first got together. (And Mav, judging by the way he moans Ice’s name, is definitely not complaining.)

But Ice thinks he likes what comes after the best, when they’re both sated and trying to catch their breath, when they’re wrapped around each other and he can feel his husband’s heart beating in sync with his. To hell with Monty Hall. This is what they both needed.

Ice is almost asleep when he feels Mav shifting away from him, and he groans, reaching for him. “Where’re you going?”

“Forgot to check my voicemail,” Mav whispers. Ice is suddenly wide awake again. “Just a sec.”

“Check it in the morning,” Ice tries, but Mav is already on his phone, swiping through his missed calls. And then he grins.

“Ice,” he says, in a way that suggests he knows the answer to his question. “Why do I have a nine and a half minute long voicemail from you?”

“Who says it’s from me?”

“Caller ID.” Mav is grinning like the F-14 that shot down the MiGs. “Well, this I have to hear.”

Ice buries his head in his pillow, his face hot. After his meeting with Bradley and Fritz that morning, he’d actually left his husband a snide voicemail about ‘kindergarten statistics.’ It’d seemed like a great idea at the time, the perfect comeback, and now that they’ve made up, he just feels embarrassed.

“This is amazing,” Mav says in the middle of Voicemail Ice’s sentence about conditional probability. He’s laughing so hard he almost can’t form proper sentences. “You should win an Oscar for this speech.”

“Shut up.”

“I think I’m going to make this my ringtone.”

“Do that and I’ll divorce you.”

“You know, Ice, I really think you missed your calling as a math professor. Teach the top one percent of math majors the importance of kindergarten statistics.”

“That’s it.” Ice extricates himself from his pillow and wrestles his husband onto his back, pinning him by his wrists to the mattress — both of them laughing so hard they can barely breathe. Ice lowers his head into the crook of Mav’s neck, his back shaking from the force of his laughter. “I’m sorry,” he manages. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“It’s okay,” Mav says. “It was cute.” Ice pulls back slightly, and Mav kisses him on the nose. “You’re cute.”

“And you’re an ass,” Ice grumbles, but he doesn’t mean it and Mav knows it.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mav says. He’s smiling up at Ice, and Ice has to kiss him again. It’s the law. “Love you too.”

* * *

_ epilogue: _

When Captain Mitchell enters the mess hall the next day, all conversation comes to a temporary standstill. Fritz almost chokes on his food when Captain Mitchell stops by his table, which consists of Bradley, Phoenix, Romeo, Harvard, and Yale. “Lieutenants,” he says.

“Sir,” they all say. Fritz knows he should leave it at that, but if the captains’ marriage is still at stake, he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do his part to fix it.

“Captain Mitchell,” he says quickly, “I know you probably don’t want to talk about Monty Hall anymore, _ but _I contacted my mother who’s a math professor and she said—”

“No need, Lieutenant. It’s all good.”

Fritz blinks, taken aback. “So the fight with Captain Kazansky is over?”

“Yep,” Captain Mitchell says, and walks off.

Fritz calls after him, “Because you understand the math now?”

“Nope!”

“Because you guys—”

“Yep,” Captain Mitchell says in response to Bradley’s unfinished sentence, and leaves the mess hall with a full tray and a cup of coffee, presumably to go and have lunch with his husband.

“Called it,” Bradley says smugly, and then goes off to refill his glass of water.

Phoenix smirks at him from across the table. “Hey, Mendoza,” she says. “See, what happened is your dads had sex—”

_ “Okay, Phoenix!” _


End file.
